Last week we held our biggest ever teacher preview which saw more than 200 teachers, from as far away as Tauranga, come to Te Papa to learn more about our new exhibition Gallipoli: The scale of our war.
The preview started with Exhibition Creative Director Sir Richard Taylor giving a presentation on how his team at Weta Workshop spent a staggering 24,000 hours creating the larger than life figures in the exhibition.
The teachers then had a chance to explore the exhibition and discuss its content and connections to student learning with our educators, hosts and curators, who have grounded the exhibition in historical research and accuracy.
All of those present received an information pack to encourage bookings for the Gallipoli education programme, and upcoming student study days and professional development workshops.
Te Papa is proud to present an exhibition that so closely aligns with what schools around the country are learning about this year to coincide with the centenary of World War One.
The idea for the exhibition’s education programme is to immerse the younger generation in the eight-month Gallipoli campaign and get them to experience it through the eyes and words of the ordinary New Zealanders who found themselves in extraordinary circumstances at Gallipoli 100 years ago.
The exhibition uses a range of storytelling techniques to bring the story of Gallipoli to life for a new generation, and we have high hopes for its impact on visitors.
“This is the national exhibition. This will set the tone of how New Zealanders remember the Gallipoli campaign for the 21st century. How people respond to this exhibition is enormously important not for my generation but for the generation who are at school now, because they will look back and determine what they think of Gallipoli by what they see at Te Papa.” Exhibition Historical Director Dr Christopher Pugsley.
To date, we’ve had an overwhelmingly positive response to the exhibition from schools, with more than 4,000 students booked to visit this year and counting…
Inevitably every student will take away something different from the exhibition but we’re confident with its range of storytelling techniques (highly visual graphics, comic-style graphic strips, digital and physical interactives, miniature models, dioramas, large-scale models, photographs, and battlefield relics) it’s impossible to go through the exhibition without learning something and having some sort of emotional reaction to it.
“Thank you soldier. I’m so sorry. I want to make it better for you. Sleep well.” Recent comment from a young visitor on the back of a memorial poppy at the end of the exhibition.
You can find out more about the Gallipoli education programme on our website.
I hope to come up to Wellington to see the exhibition. Have been keen to do so since seeing John Campbell’s piece on it on Campbell Live.